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New Member

i was putting in new thermal paste on my i5 2550k processor and i had some old thermal paste on fingers and i accidentaly touched the bottom
part of the CPU where the golden pins are and it left a little thermal paste stain, it is a very small amount and can barely be seen.
my PC seems to be working fine atm
Should i be worried?

But the OP here already mounted it and it works. There is a serious risk of damaging the CPU or socket from physical abuse/mishap or ESD whenever handling it. Plus, he said a small "stain", barely seen. It is not a big blob. So I say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

It's hard to say whether to clean it or not. On the one hand I'm inclined to agree with @Bill_Bright and say leave it, but if you're overclocking, then it might make a difference. I'm thinking about the kinds of pins they are. If they're power or ground, then they'll be passing a lot of current, so any extra resistance will cause heat build-up and potential burnout, as well as instability.

If you're gonna clean it, then use that isopropyl alcohol I mentioned, but ensure it's with a clean lint free cloth, not your shirt or some other cloth lying around as that will leave debris and crap on the pins, even too small to see, but it will matter.

Clean it or not, it's your call on this one.

Finally, isopropyl alcohol is poisonous, so use it sensibly in a well ventilated environment and on no account ingest it.

Arctic Silver 5 was formulated to conduct heat, not electricity. (While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.)

New Member

For the benefit of others who stumble upon this via Google, I also did the same silly thing after I put too much by accident. I used Arcticlean remover by putting a drop on a cotton bud / q-tip and carefully dabbing the area in the corner with it a few times, in-between using a dust blower to dry it and blow any microscopic debris away. Did this for 5 minutes, then applied the Arcticlean purifier to remove everything afterwards, same method. Repeated the whole thing twice and crossed my fingers, luckily escaped with no issues. Temps are fine, Intel Diagnostic tool reports fine, used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut instead of Arctic Silver this time, spreading method.

I've used a toothbrush to clean off the baked on TIM when I de-lidded. Farther back it was for a Athlon XP 2500+. Somehow I transferred TIM from my hand to a few pins, cleaned off with Dawn, and a toothbrush.